


pour me a heavy dose of atmosphere

by kekinkawaii



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22236727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kekinkawaii/pseuds/kekinkawaii
Summary: Castiel didn’t think he’d ever stop skipping a breath every time he saw him, each subsequent reaction identical to the first time, when they were paired up to read To Kill a Mockingbird together and Dean had turned around from his desk and a little bit of his heart had leaped and lodged in his throat stubbornly, stunned, and refused to budge from there since then.(in which Castiel is overly pessimistic, Dean is a secret romantic, and the sky is clear tonight.)
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 112





	pour me a heavy dose of atmosphere

“Are you sure?” Dean asked for the dozenth time since the day had started.

“Yes,” Castiel replied, at the same frequency. He gave his friend the most encouraging smile he could. “I promise I can survive without you for a night.”

Dean pursed his lips, head cocking to the side pensively. “You sure?”

“I’ll live,” Castiel said dryly. “Just go and have fun. Seriously, Dean, it’s fine.”

“But I’ll miss you,” Dean whined, giving Castiel his best rendition of—what was traditionally a Castiel move—pleading puppy eyes. He blinked dramatically, eyes ridiculously green and lashes ridiculously long (Castiel didn’t think he’d ever stop skipping a breath every time he noticed them, each subsequent reaction identical to the first time, when they were paired up to read _To Kill a Mockingbird_ together and Dean had turned around from his desk and a little bit of his heart had leaped and lodged in his throat stubbornly, stunned, and refused to budge from there since then.)

“You can miss me at the party,” Castiel suggested.

It wasn’t like Castiel didn’t want to go (to be perfectly honest, he’d go to one of those boring football games and sit in the back row where he couldn’t see anything in the pouring rain if he knew Dean would be there with him—and he had, and he did, and it was worth the shivering to have Dean share an umbrella with him while they waited for the bus home), but Sarah Miller wasn’t especially known for her safe, relaxing, appropriate-volume music, PG parties, and he really couldn’t blame his parents this time.

It was a strange sort of disappointment, mingled with a guilty tinge of relief—because Castiel wasn’t going to see Dean ask Lisa to dance with him, and he wasn’t going to see him ask Lisa to date him, and he _definitely_ wasn’t going to have to pretend he was happy for Dean, as a friend and nothing more.

Dean faux-pouted. “Won’t you miss me, too?” he prompted, with an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle, that teasing sparkle in his eyes that, to him, meant nothing. 

“Of course I’ll miss you,” Castiel said, a little too softly, a little too much _real_ slipping through. He disguised it with a playful shove to Dean’s shoulder. “Save a dance for me?”

“Of course, Cas.” Dean played along, winking. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“See you tomorrow, Dean,” Castiel replied, and reciprocated Dean’s wave as he turned around and walked down the street where their paths home split.

He sighed when he was sure Dean was out of hearing, and tried futilely to untangle the mess of emotions tumbling inside his stomach. He was already unbelievably grateful to have Dean (star of the basketball team, woe of a dozen girls, _Dean Winchester_ Dean) as his friend. He could appreciate that and take it for what it was, what it should be: enough. He would get over it.

But that was what he had thought one hour after meeting him, starstruck and softly stunned during lunch. That was what he had thought months, weeks, days ago.

So maybe he wasn’t going to get over it. But he was dealing. He’s had years of experience, after all.

-+-+-+-

Castiel was just wrapping up his Calculus homework when he heard the faint sound coming from downstairs, muffled and barely heard through the pounding music through his headphones, only registered due to a knee-jerk reaction trained from years of recognizing the exact noise and timbre of his name being shouted.

He removed one ear, holding it open. “What?” he yelled.

“Come downstairs!” her mother’s voice came, prompting.

Castiel slid his headphones down so that they rested on his neck, paused his music, and begrudgingly made his way downstairs.

“What,” he began, and then his words cut off in a choke.

Dean was standing in the doorway.

The first thing Castiel registered was that he was dressed way too nicely for a party: deep green button-up that brought out his eyes, hair tamed down and combed.

The second thing he realized was that he was in his rumpled plaid pyjamas and matching baggy, low-slung pants and a worse-than-usual bedhead from the accidental nap he took when he got home.

“Heya, Cas,” Dean said, with a crooked smirk-smile that sent waves of embarrassment flushing down Castiel’s neck.

“Dean rang and asked to see you,” Castiel’s mother explained from the side, a few moments too late. 

“I can see that,” Castiel said faintly, and stepped closer so that he could speak in a hushed tone that he felt was more appropriate for the situation.

“What are you doing here?” he hissed.

Dean shrugged, lowering his voice to match Castiel’s. “What, a guy can’t come visit his friend?”

“Well— _no!”_ Castiel said, flailing a bit. “Not when there’s a party going on at the same time!”

“Eh,” Dean said dismissively, then brightened. “I wanted to show you something.”

“Um,” Castiel said. “Can I go get changed, first?”

Dean tilted his head. “I don’t know, the pyjama look is pretty cute on you.” 

Castiel rolled his eyes and scampered upstairs to change. He threw his headphones on his desk and closed his laptop. After a moment’s consideration, he threw on a pair of jeans and a navy button-up before heading back downstairs, fruitlessly patting down his hair.

In the hall, Dean seemed to be engaged in conversation with Castiel’s mother—and, surprisingly, they seemed to be getting along.

“Hey,” Dean said, smiling at him when he saw him coming downstairs. “Ready to go?”

“Yes,” Castiel said slowly. “But where?”

Dean grinned. “It’s a surprise. I cleared it with your mom already.” He tilted his head towards the door and spun his car keys around his thumb. “C’mon.”

Castiel turned to his mother for support and found, with a nonsensical sort of betrayal, that she was nodding and shooing him out the door.

“Be back before ten,” she called out just before she closed the door, which restored some (but not all) of Castiel’s faith in normalcy.

“You got it, ma’am!” Dean responded brightly, and didn’t say anything else until the door was fully closed behind them, after of which he leaned against it and blew out a huge breath.

“Your mother,” Dean said, face the epitome of seriousness, “is terrifying.”

Castiel couldn’t hold back a snort. “You’re ridiculous,” he said.

“I am _not wrong,”_ Dean insisted. “She has more backbone than Mr. Stinson, I swear.” (Mr. Stinson was the auto-shop teacher slash coach of the senior football team, and was famously known for his catchphrase 'All students are liars and thieves' and his grueling warm-up routine). “I feel like I just went through one of those airport security gates.”

Castiel shook his head. Dean always swore up and down about how scary his mother was, and frankly it was astounding, and more than a little amusing: Castiel’s mother baked cookies for the church pastor every Sunday, and sang old love ballads while she sewed. Dean once threatened bodily harm to two drunk university students for not leaving Castiel alone when they were walking home from one of Dean’s games. Castiel knew his mother’s typical attitude towards his friends, and while it could be intimidating, he couldn’t help but gauge Dean’s reaction as over-the-top.

It hit him then that he never did question what his mother talked to Dean about. The question was a long time coming, and Castiel always thought it irrational to ask, but something about tonight—the thought that Dean, for some inane reason, came to see him on this particular night—sparked a small bold flame, that flicker of _What if?_ stubborn in his heart.

“What did she say to you?” Castiel finally asked. 

“Oh, just the usual,” Dean said airily. “Asking about my marks. My sports teams, varsity and stuff.” Absentmindedly, he ticked them off on his fingers. “How I’ve been doing at school lately. If I’m treating you well.”

“What?” Castiel said inanely.

“I think that was it for tonight,” Dean said. “But sometimes she shows me your baby pictures, too. You were an _adorable_ baby. Even cuter than you are now.”

“WHAT?”

Dean burst into laughter. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” he said when Castiel gave him his best glare—which he knew, despite his puppy-eyed powers, could be quite terrifying. “Or am I?” He grinned. “You’ll never know.”

“I hate you,” Castiel said flatly.

“You love me,” Dean cooed.

“Do I?” Castiel said. 

“You do,” Dean said confidently. “You just haven’t admitted it to yourself yet.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Castiel muttered (this was exactly what he was talking about—how easily these jokes and blatant flirtations slipped off Dean’s tongue without a second thought, because it didn’t need one; not for Dean). “Can you tell me where we’re going now?”

“Nope,” Dean said, popping the p. “Just get in the car.”

Castiel got in the car.

He managed to bite his tongue and silently watch the road flash by, Dean quietly humming _Stairway to Heaven,_ for a good few minutes before he finally cracked, throwing his arms up in the air (hands hitting the roof of the Impala) and letting out an exasperated sigh.

“If you can’t tell me _where,_ can you at least tell me _why_ you’ve carnapped me?” he said.

Dean glanced at Castiel, one eyebrow quirked. “Carnapped?” 

“Answer the question, Dean.”

“Well,” Dean drawled, turning the steering wheel and suddenly setting the car atop a rolicking rumble of gravel. “So I was at the party, right? And I’m in the living room, and there’s music, and it’s obviously way too loud like usual, and its, like, _horrible_ music, y’know? Like some freakin’ electro-pop bullshit.”

“Dean,” Castiel started.

“Cas,” Dean interrupted, softly, before Castiel could continue. “Just hear me out, yeah?”

Something in his tone made him listen. 

Dean gave Castiel a small, grateful smile, before quietly clearing his throat. The gravel path seemed to have diminished into something softer, less sturdy, giving underneath the weight of the car as it slowly rumbled along.

“And there’s a fuckton of people there, and half of them are high and the rest are some sort of intoxicated, and there’s a group of some dozen girls vaping in the only washroom, and all this time I’m thinkin’, why am I here again?” He snapped his fingers, hands briefly fluttering off the steering wheel. “Right, I was gonna ask Lisa out.”

“I try to find her in the house, and lemme tell you, it’s a goddamn nightmare. I spill some guy’s beer on my shirt and nearly break a vase before I finally see her. She’s in the corner, sitting on the couch with a bunch of other girls—they travel in packs, yeah?—and so I go over there and before I can say anything they’re all over me, putting me down on the floor and dragging me into a game of Truth or Dare.”

Dean eased on the gas, into the brake, and the car rolled to a stop. He took his hands off the steering wheel, but kept his eyes to his front.

“So I think, hell, why not? I can do this. And I sit there and watch them goof off for a bit, and then when it’s finally my turn, I pick Lisa and she says Truth. And I say, if I asked you to go out with me, would she say yes? And she says no.

“I’m kinda bummed, then, because I thought she liked me, yeah? So I’m about to ask her why, but before I can say anything she hits me with a Truth or Dare, and I think fuck it, it doesn’t matter, and I pick Dare, because I always pick dare. And she says—”

Dean turned to look at Castiel, green eyes glinting. 

“And she dares me to confess to you.”

And he fell quiet.

Castiel’s throat was desert-dry when he swallowed, cracking with his voice when he spoke. “Confess what?”

Dean’s smile was wry. “Don’t make me spell it out for you,” he murmured, and then he was leaning in across the front seat, shifting to face Castiel fully, one hand coming up to cup the side of his neck, achingly gentle.

He gave Castiel plenty of time to register the intent in his eyes, the way he wet his lips with a flick of his tongue and brushed his thumb across Castiel’s pulse point. When Castiel didn’t move—didn’t flinch nor withdrawl nor speak—he let out a tiny sigh and leaned in to press their lips together in the barest of brushes, so faint it was barely there, but with so much tenderness Castiel felt himself make a small sound in his throat that escaped without warning.

With faint pressure to his neck, Dean prompted Castiel to tilt his head further, pushing the kiss a fraction deeper for a split second of solid contact, before he drew away.

“Okay?” Dean breathed.

Castiel didn’t have the words to tell Dean that when he pulled away, he took all of Castiel’s breath along with him. He looked at Dean’s eyes, closer than he ever had before, than he ever had the courage to even imagine; a starburst of flora that had snuck and smuggled its way Castiel’s heart, settled down in a divot and made it its home, so long ago.

He nodded.

Dean broke into a relieved grin. “Yeah?”

Castiel nodded again, and scrounged up enough air to reply with a quiet hum of confirmation.

Dean held himself still, but there was that spark in his eyes that, after studying him for years, Castiel knew meant he was truly happy.

“C’mon,” he suddenly said, and twisted around to open the car door.

Castiel followed, and found Dean leaning against the front. They seemed to be in the middle of a field, some sort of clearing—the grass long and tickling Castiel’s ankles.

“Look up,” Dean said, and Castiel did, and he was greeted with an endless sprawl of stars.

Castiel craned his neck to stare: it was like a painter had dipped a brush in a bucketful of white paint and splattered it, wholeheartedly and generously, onto a black canvas the size of the sky. His breath came out in light puffs, chilling air against his face.

“It’s gorgeous,” Castiel said.

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Hey, c’mere.”

Castiel mirrored Dean, leaning against the engine-warmed metal, and Dean drew his arm around him and pulled him in so that their sides were flush, Dean’s shoulder supporting Castiel’s head as they gazed up at the sky.

“This shirt actually isn’t even mine,” Dean said. “I borrowed it from Sarah’s brother. Mine had beer all over it. I think your mom would’ve skinned me alive if I wore it to your house.”

Castiel grinned helplessly.

“Before I left the party to find you,” Dean continued, “I asked Lisa how she knew, and you know what she said?”

He squeezed Castiel lightly. “She said I looked like a lost puppy without you next to me. And then she told me about this place, and how it was perfect for stargazing.”

Dean turned his head so that he could murmur into Castiel’s ear. 

“This is the cheesiest thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “And I give you full permission to make fun of me for it for the rest of the week.”

Castiel felt a laugh bubble up in his chest, not even because it was funny, but just out of sheer, giddy joy. 

“I thought,” Castiel started, and swallowed a lump of emotion, thick in his throat. “I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I always thought you were just joking.”

Dean huffed out a laugh. “And here I was, thinking you were just not interested.”

“Never,” Castiel said honestly. “I never thought I could have this.”

“That makes two of us,” Dean said. “Aren't we lucky?”

Castiel shut his eyes and felt that little piece of his heart in his throat come finally, blissfully, unlodged.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaand I just couldn't help myself. I'm a sucker for cheesy oneshots.  
> If you enjoyed this at all, please leave a review! It makes my entire day <3
> 
> Title taken from Owl City's "Vanilla Twilight" :)


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